Hildegard Laechert, 57, nicknamed “Bloody Birgitta” by inmates at Maidanek concentration camp in Poland during World War II, contested evidence by a Polish witness during he trial in Duesseldorf last week. She is among 14 defendants charged with murdering 27,000 prisoners, including herding Jewish children to the gas chambers, and whipping, beating and shooting hundreds of children to death. During a recess in the trial, she asked reporters: “Why don’t they charge the Americans who dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima with murder, too?” Another defendant in the trial is Hermine Ryan-Braunsteiner, who became a U.S. citizen and was extradited to West Germany to stand trial.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
